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Minus ACE moniker, tech job efforts will continue

Mayor: Agency made promises and delivered nothing

By Tom Hacker Reporter-Herald Staff Writer

Posted:
03/09/2012 11:52:59 PM MST

Flawed financial plans, combined with unrealistic visions for using space at the former Agilent Technologies Inc. campus, led to a split between the Colorado agency that launched the program known as ACE and the new project developers, the participants said Friday.

Development of the south Loveland campus as a hub for manufacturing jobs will proceed in a "more feasible, more real" way as the Rocky Mountain Center for Innovation and Technology than under the ACE plan, said Bill Murphree, principal with property owner Cumberland & Western Resources LLC.

And the U.S. space agency's role in the project would come "in a more focused, more robust fashion that ever before," Murphree said.

Senior NASA technology administrator Robert "Joe" Shaw, chief of business development at the agency's Glenn Research Center in Ohio, said in an interview while traveling Friday that NASA "has stepped up our effort in Loveland."

He also said that he had been in close contact with Murphree and others involved with the development project since the company closed on its purchase of the Agilent campus in December.

Steep Curve

"While the time period has been short, the slope of the curve in building this relationship has been very steep," Shaw said. "I've been very impressed by these people and by their sincerity. Loveland looks like it's going to produce some great opportunities for us.

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Murphree said his Kentucky-based company examined the plan set forth a year ago by the Colorado Association for Manufacturing and Technology (CAMT) for the Aerospace Clean Energy Manufacturing and Innovation Park and found it financially flawed and physically not feasible.

"We undertook a very thoughtful and deliberate evaluation of the ACE project, and concluded that it would not work financially," Murphree said. "We developed alternative strategies, based on very sound business practices, that are much more real, and much more ready to implement."

CAMT chief executive Elaine Thorndike said Thursday her agency's ACE plan was "not aligned" with Cumberland & Western's vision for the Agilent campus, and that her group would seek a location closer to the Denver-Boulder region.

'Pieces In Place'

Cumberland & Western's strong connections to the space agency will propel the development of the former Agilent campus at Southwest 14th Street and Taft Avenue, said Murphree and others, including a key NASA administrator and a consultant to the project with close ties to the agency.

"We have the city, which is willing to invest, we have Cumberland & Western, who owns the buildings, and we have the companies who are waiting to participate," said David Lung, who had spent four months as a NASA contractor to Thorndike's agency.

"The environment is very good to have this happen. All of the pieces are in place."

Lung's Longmont-based firm, DA2 Consulting, has contracts with both Cumberland & Western and Loveland to link local companies and prospective technology park tenants to patents controled by NASA, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, other federal labs and universities.

Lung's contract with the city, approved by city councilors in February, requires him to identify Loveland companies and link them to specific technology patents developed at NASA labs and elsewhere.

While the technology transfer project does not officially launch until March 23, Lung is already hard at work with two companies -- Vergent Products Inc. and Cadeka Microcircuits Inc. -- on the patent-matching program.

'A Candy Store'

Cadeka CEO Jay Dokter said his first meeting with Lung yielded more benefit than he expected.

"As I explained what Cadeka does, I was completely blown away when the six things David mentioned were the six things we were thinking about. ... We were like kids in a candy store. We see opportunity, and we know what to do with it. He's going to help us figure out what it takes to get there."

Murphree said his company's contract with Lung reaches for the same goals, bridging prospective manufacturing tenants at the Rocky Mountain Center for Innovation and Technology with the products of laboratory research.

"First of all, we've had a relationship with NASA in a variety of venues for a long time," Murphree said. "We'll be working with NASA, and through David, to provide technology transfer services to prospective tenants. It's that part of the program that we have in place right now that is focused and tangible."

Murphree also said he saw no conflict in Lung's twin role as a contractor to the city and to Cumberland & Western.

"It's really true that a rising tide raises all boats," he said. "To the extent that David's work with the city improves Loveland's business climate, it's beneficial to all of us."

NCEDC Involved

The city's technology transfer project, led by Loveland economic development director Betsey Hale, is also being pushed ahead by the Northern Colorado Economic Development Corp. and other job-boosting agencies in the region.

NCEDC President Walter Elish said CAMT's decision to pursue its ACE model elsewhere in Colorado did nothing to diminish his optimism that Loveland's tech center would develop.

"From our perspective, nothing's really changed," Elish said. "C&W has the resources, and the interest, to make that happen. It's a golden opportunity for the region."

Elish, Murphree and others said they wished Thorndike and CAMT well with their plans to develop a multi-tenant manufacturing park, following the ACE model, somewhere else.

"If they can find a way, and a place, for their concept to work, more power to them," Murphree said. "I think we have put something much better in place -- much better for us, and for Loveland."

'Delivered Nothing'

When CAMT, in cooperation with NASA, announced the ACE initiative in December 2010, the group was specific in describing a project that would produce 7,000 local jobs, with as many as 100 companies in a single location, and another 3,000 jobs elsewhere in the state.

Loveland Mayor Cecil Gutierrez said he thought Cumberland & Western's development plan would move ahead at a pace that Thorndike's organization could never have matched.

"CAMT made big-headline promises and delivered nothing," he said. "This promises to be a more sustainable program. These companies can add 15, 20, 30 people at a time. Those won't make huge headlines, but it will be sustainable job growth."

Cadeka CEO Dokter said that the work that the city, Lung and Cumberland & Western was engaged in was more directly targeted at the original intent of the ACE plan -- fostering the growth of manufacturing jobs.

"People need to remind themselves of the real objective, here," Dokter said. "The objective is to create jobs. I don't see where Loveland, and this development company, are moving away from that objective. They are going straight after it."

Tom Hacker can be reached at 669-5050, ext. 521, or thacker@reporter-herald